


Hell In A Handbasket

by Wispy_Raindrop



Series: Survive, Recover, Live [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Body Horror, Gen, Graphic Description of Experimentation, Graphic description of torture, Human Experimentation, Sadstuck, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:36:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wispy_Raindrop/pseuds/Wispy_Raindrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider and you think this is what Hell feels like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell In A Handbasket

**Author's Note:**

> So, not sure how bad others might consider what happens but I figured I'd rather be safe than sorry with the tags and stuff. This story takes place before What Is Done To Us but was written after. It also took me a while to edit but I finally feel comfortable posting it. I had a harder time looking for quotes that would fit this story so there's only one. Again, if I cited the wrong person, please let me know.  
> Hope you enjoy!

Your name is Dave Strider and you think this is what Hell feels like.

Your body aches, burns, itches. It feels like pins and needles have embedded themselves beneath your skin, digging in to rend your flesh apart like a fat kid exploding with cake at his great-aunt's birthday party but oops, looks like that killed him and now grandma's dead too. Guess the shock was too much for her. Now who's gonna feed her million and one cats?

You're not sure where your thoughts are going, you never really do these days. But you're having them so that means you're awake though you can't tell what woke you. You're pretty sure it's not time for more rounds of tests and even then you're not usually this aware of what's going on around you. Either you're out all night or everything is so fuzzy you don't understand much of what's going on around you.

Only the pain seems to register.

But it seems like your mind was on the right track for once. It's morning, early. Seventh hour, thirty-first minute, twenty-third second, forty-fourth millisecond... It's daytime even if the sun isn't out yet. Not that you've actually seen the sun in a while (seven years, six months, twelve days, three hours, eight minutes, forty-nine seconds, fifty milliseconds...) but it counts to them. It means only one thing though and you're becoming aware of the cold metal you're lying on, the biting straps that keep you pinned down. It means there are needles in your arms - always needles, you're pretty sure they have a fetish or something - pumping you full of God knows what like you're a pinata filled with poisoned candy, ready to be smacked open at some kid's birthday party and drowning them in the pool after consuming your toxic goods and then it's all over the news how some kids got all up on drugs and died and the parents throw a hissy-fit and bam! No more fun party, guys, can't risk death by shitty dead guys.

You seem rather preoccupied by death lately. You're not not sure what that says about you.

Either way the needles burn where they enter your body and the more you wake up, the more it intensifies until it feels like your arms are about to boil, bubble and pop and crack until you're a pile of fiery flesh all set out for the school BBQ. No kids it ain't cannibalism if he's dead, go and enjoy yourself and make sure you clean up Sally, can't leave her rotting in the corner.

You don't know what's rotting in the corner. Maybe it's a part of you.

You don't think anything is missing though your back seems to writhe in weird ways, like tentacles or vines are crawling beneath your skin. Or maybe it's just whatever is in those needles that continuously enters your body. You can feel it and it makes you want to vomit.

Your body twitches and you gasp in pain. Every nerve-ending is shocked like you've been eletrocuted and your bones are being crunched into a gooey paste. You wonder what trolls need human bone paste for anyway, is it like super glue or do they make it into their grub sauce or whatever? Is it even only trolls doing this or are there humans too? You're not sure which answer you would prefer.

You gasp again, try to drag breath into your lungs as your body jerks in it's restraints, sending flares of shock and pain and _agony_ racing through your nervous system. You try to keep still but you can't. Your body doesn't listen to you, doesn't seem to get the hint that maybe spazzing like a fish on dry land is actually making it worse, that not moving makes it stop. Or at least dulls the pain, doesn't make it flare up like you've got hot pokers shoved into every open sore on your body.

(You think the last one healed over fourteen hours, fifty-six minutes, nineteen seconds, fifty-eight milliseconds ago. They don't leave them open for long. Can't risk you. Can't risk It.)

You can barely breathe now and you dread them coming in, dread whoever will step through the door - if there is a door, you don't know, you can't remember, maybe the room is open and they're watching you now like fucking creeps jerking off to child porn from the safety of their rooms behind a computer screen while Nurse Joy is in the kitchen baking cookies for their kids' bake sale the next town over - 'cause that means they'll give you That and you can't, you can't, you can't youcan'tyoucan-

Breathe, Dave, breathe. C'mon you can do it. In and out just like those cheap, new age yoga videos that always try to make you eat vegetables or some shit. You don't know if they actually do that, you never watched that shit.

You're not sure where your thoughts are going.

Were they ever going anywhere? You don't think so.

What-

There, it's starting. Again. The voices. Flooding your mind and scratching at your subconscious like-

Breathe, breathe, breathe, just like your Bro taught you-

The voices itch and crawl their way into your brain until they drown out everything else and you just want them to _go away_.

But they don't. They never do until night when you're doped up while they're doing God knows what to you. It's only seven thirty-nine, fifteen seconds, thirty milliseconds in the morning and hours (eleven hours, twenty-one minutes, sixteen seconds, ten milliseconds...) until they come back for you, to move you back to the hot room filling your mind with fuzz and chilling your blood until it feels like it's freezing you from the inside out.

You choke, body still jerking against your restraints, against the pain drilling it's way into your bones. Something's in your lungs, your mouth, drooling down your chin. It's hot, coppery and metallic. You can't tell if it's blood or whatever is still – _still –_ being pumped into you, through you.

The voices whisper insistently in a language you don't know and you really want to tell them off 'cause seriously what kind of douchebag pops into a guys head and just spends the whole time blabbing incoherently at him? But the words don't come, the thoughts don't form properly and you-

can't-

(The point is mostly moot, anyway. You can understand what they're saying.)

You wheeze and cough, attempt to bring air into your lungs but more of that hot liquid spills out instead. You're shaking now, trembling with pain and fear and exhaustion and you just _want it to end_.

(No, keep your cool, Strider, you can do it, just chill, relax, it's not that bad, they've done worse, you know they have, just don't think about it, don't think about it, don'tthinkaboutitdon't-)

You're half glad you can't see, that you haven't been able to for a (-seven years, six months, twelve days, three hours, seventeen minutes, three seconds, forty milliseconds-) while but even the usual itch of the blindfold fused into your flesh is starting to burn and-

And

you

It's too- early, for this. You sleep for the first half of this, usually. So why-

You scream.

(Great job on the chill there, Strider.)

(You don't care.)

Your back _burns._ It's a mass of searing hot flesh and whatever was crawling beneath you skin pushes _out_ and something _tears-_

Your body arches as much as it can under the restraints, the needles jabbing in and tearing flesh of their own. Your next scream is cut off by whatever is trying to make it's way up your throat and you choke, wheeze, _gasp,_ but it gargles in your mouth and flows down your chin and you-

can't-

“There, there, sweetheart,” a sickly sweet voice croons in your ear. A clawed hand runs through your hair and you tremble. “It's all right. You'll be all perfect soon.”

Something is shoved down your throat and you choke again. A tube, your brain somehow supplies through the haze of pain drilling into your every molecule. Feeding you like a baby on steroids that's weightlifting in the park and-

You breathe, you can breathe, the liquid is being sucked out and you can breathe but your body's still seizing, needles still pumping and the voices are getting louder and-

“Sleep,” the voice says and it makes you want to puke, “sleep for now. You'll be perfect in the morning.”

Your name is Dave Strider and, as you slip into unconsciousness, you feel the fires of Hell.

 

“ _Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.” - George Orwell, 1984_

 


End file.
